Overnight Success – Details, episodes & analysis

To most of us it would seem inconceivable to build one of the biggest bike brands in the world from absolutely nothing. Think of the capital it would require, the global distribution network, complex supply chains, logistics, manufacturing, sales, design … It’s a daunting endeavour and hard to imagine where you’d even begin.

Well, it didn’t start with all of those elements in mind. Roman Arnold, Canyon's founder, simply started cycling as a way of competing for recognition and approval from his father over his three brothers. His father sold bike parts at his weekend races to help pay for the hobby. And the rest is history.

He started from humble beginnings, got his hands dirty, educated himself, and grew Canyon to be one of the largest cycling brands on the planet through baby steps, hard work, diligent spending and most of all, a true passion for cycling.

For a brand that feels so young and progressive, some might mistake it for an overnight success. But as you’ve now learned it’s been over 45 years in the making, one small step at a time with the resources that Mr Arnold has had right in front of him.

This is Roman’s remarkable story of how he build Canyon Bicycles.

Many would argue that Cervélo is one of the most innovative bike brands in the cycling industry. Back in the 1990s when they first started, almost everyone else was focusing on lightweight bikes. Cervélo, meanwhile, was busy pioneering bicycle aerodynamics. I’ve ask engineers at various bike companies which brand impresses them most with regards to engineering and innovation, and overwhelmingly I hear them say Cervélo.

The genesis of Cervélo started in 1995 when two young engineering students named Phil White and Gerard Vroomen met in the composites lab at McGill University in Canada. Over a span of 15 years they went from building a crazy aerodynamic time trial bike as a university project to creating one of the most disruptive and loved bike brands in the world. 

But what many people don’t know is that as wildly successful Cervélo was up until 2011, it was a pressure cooker of constant financial challenges which ultimately led to Gerard and Phil selling the business to Dutch holding company, PON. 2008-2011 had been the perfect storm for Cervélo with the global financial crisis, setting up a professional team that was far more successful than anticipated, and a private lender which led to the company’s turn of events.

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DeFeet is mostly thought about as a sock brand, and that’s largely the case, even though they also make arm warmers, gloves and base layers. After 31 years of being in the trade, they’re the longest-standing business dedicated to socks in the cycling market that I’m aware of. 

Back in the 90’s socks may have been the least interesting, and most neglected piece of apparel in a cyclist's wardrobe, or any athlete’s for that matter. They were just flimsy tubes of cotton or wool that covered the feet. It was a thankless job nobody gave much thought to. 

What it took to change that was a man by the name of Shane Cooper, who had a unique set of skills, hobbies and passions that all came together to change the game in socks. 

Bowhead is a business that’s only about 5 years old, but it’s been twenty years in the making. It’s a brand many of you probably haven’t heard of before, and despite this I truly hope that you do listen to this episode, because this one is one of the most inspiring stories that I’ve come across while making this podcast. 

Christian Bagg has been a lifelong adrenaline junkie who loved mountain biking and snowboarding. Christian broke his back in 1996 while snowboarding. His life changed forever because of this, but that didn’t hold him back from living his life to the fullest. He quickly adapted by racing wheelchairs, cross country and downhill skiing.

A machinist by trade, Christian couldn’t help thinking about how his adaptive equipment for these sports that he loved kept failing him and how he could make it better. 

Jump ahead to now, 2023, Christian’s company Bowhead has the most innovative adaptive mountain bikes the world has ever seen and has given other people with disabilities a new level of passion they couldn’t enjoy before. 

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Over the past decade, MAAP has risen to become one of the most successful and highly regarded apparel brands in the market. Born in the age of Instagram brands in 2014, there was an explosion of these micro-brands with a design-led ethos popping up all over the place. Cycling apparel was going through a big change at this time. People were loving untraditional and playful kits and they were beginning to become a fashion statement just as much as they were a technical product. The barrier to entry for apparel was getting fairly low at this time as custom kit were accessible to anyone, and social media was a new way of gaining a following and building a brand. 

I’ve known the co-founders of MAAP, Jarrad Lawrie and Ollie Cousins since before the inception of the brand. Since their early days we’ve done many kit collaborations together and I’ve had enormous respect and admiration for what they’ve built.

While all of us reside in the city of Melbourne, Australia and see each other from time to time and we have many mutual friends, I actually don’t know their founding story in detail until now. 

I've wanted to do this episode for a long time now and I’m glad I finally got the chance to sit down with Jarrad and Ollie to share their remarkable journey.  

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This month we’ve got a different episode for you. For a long time now I've been asked to share the origin story of CyclingTips in this podcast, but I always knew there was more to come in this journey. But now that the story is complete, I figured this is a good time to tell it.

Instead of this being a monologue, I asked Mitch Docker (from the Life in the Peloton podcast) to host this episode. Mitch's journey with Life in the Peloton is similar to my own in many ways, and I'm enjoying seeing him take his own path and making a success out of it.

It's hard to say if CyclingTips was a success or not. It depends on how you measure it. Like countless other media brands, CyclingTips is no longer in existence. But at one time it was a daily destination for cycling enthusiasts around the globe, and had a strong place within the cycling community that we were proud of.

The version of CyclingTips that died a quick death was a very popular one. Each year millions of people visited the site. There were thousands of paying members. We ran events. We supported local events whenever we could. We contributed to charitable and social causes. We tried to give a voice to those who didn’t have one. We weren’t the biggest, but we liked to think that we made an impact in our little corner of the world.

From the outside it might have looked like a straightforward path, but as you'll hear it was anything but...

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The story of an unassuming American who brought Castelli back from the grave.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more iconic brand in cycling than Castelli. The company dates back to the late 1800s, to around the time of the first-ever documented bike race. 

Castelli is an Italian brand with a long, complicated history, but much of its recent success is due to an American by the name of Steve Smith, who came onto the scene in 2000. He had no Italian heritage, no real cycling industry experience, but he did have a love of cycling. By his own admission, he wasn’t an amazing cyclist – instead he veered towards technical innovation so he could stay competitive. 

Steve’s email signature says ‘Castelli Brand Manager’, but I always got the feeling from speaking with him over the years that he did far more than that. As I dug deeper into his story, I learned he’s part owner of the business, steers the ship, and is ultimately the man who turned Castelli around into what we know it as today.

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In this episode of From the Top, I speak to The Sufferfest founder David McQuillen about how he went from working in the Swiss Banking industry, to creating one of the largest indoor training platforms in his spare time and later selling the business to Wahoo Fitness.

I first met David back in 2010 at the Road World Championships in Geelong and we became good friends thereafter. We were both in similar start-up stages of our businesses and we had lots in common. When David moved to Melbourne we got together frequently to discuss business, cycling and the general landscape of both.

David is one of the most enthusiastic, humble, and clever people I’ve had the privilege of knowing and it’s been an absolute joy to watch his business flourish. As you’ll find out, even though The Sufferfest may have been a ‘happy accident’, none of the decisions he took on his successful journey have been by mistake.

This is David’s remarkable story of how he built The Sufferfest.

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So many of the businesses we’ve discovered in this show have been ‘happy accidents’ so to speak, and Scratch Labs embodies that very same organic build and hustling spirit. Founded by two longtime friends, Allan Lim and Ian McGregor as both were sidelined from the sport, they both described themselves as initially too ‘lazy’ to actually sell their ‘secret drink mix’ they were making for pro cycling teams at the time. But as one thing led to another, they found themselves in their kitchens making their products, mixing drink powders in paint shakers, and throwing pizza and beer parties with their friends to fulfil orders. 

In an absolutely crowded market of nutritional products, these two, with no business experience were able to work their way to become one of the biggest little brands in the sports nutrition world. 

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You could argue that Bonnie Tu is the most powerful woman in cycling, although she wouldn’t think of describing herself that way. She’s best known for being the face of the Liv brand she created back in 2008, but more than that she’s chairperson of the largest bike brand in the world: the Giant Bicycle Group. What does that mean? Quite simply, she runs the entire company.

Giant Bicycles is a US$2.1 billion-per-annum publicly traded company that produces millions of bikes per year, while also serving as manufacturer for some of the largest and most reputable bike brands.

Giant was founded in 1972. That’s 48 years ago, and Bonnie was one of the founding shareholders. As you’ll hear, she has been very influential in many of the company’s foundations and its pathway up until now.

This is the growth story of Bonnie Tu and not necessarily the story of Giant Bicycles or Liv. But they’re so intertwined that it’s hard not to tell one without the other.